Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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64 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
DR JONES & PROFESSOR SPEILBERG - ONE LAST TIME ..., 25 Jul 2008
The decision to resurrect the Indiana Jones franchise after 18 years was a brave one. Could Harrison Ford (64) still pull off the swagger, athletic action and smart one liners that made Indy such a sensation all those years ago ? Did Speilberg still have the nous to direct a full on pop corn action film with brains ?
Well if you ignore the use of ropey CGI and the ridiculous last 15 minutes (when the film literally falls apart) the answer is a resounding yes. The Crystal Skull of the title may be a weak prize for Dr Jones to seek but how he gets there is great fun - man eating ants, nuclear explosions, bad sword weilding Russians and some spectacular chases - it's all thrown at Indy who handles it all with aplomb. Ford plays on his age and gives us the grumpy, cynical and world weary Indiana Jones you'd expect from a man just about old enough to collect his bus pass.
Speilberg's latest prodical son, Shia Labeouf, plays a young greaser who may, or may not be Indy's son and Marion Ravewood returns from Raiders in a nicely pitched and spunky performance.
It's hard to be completely positive about Indy 4 though - simply because the first three films were so great, and there are moments in this movie when you feel that Speilberg and his cast are cruising on past glories. The aforementioned dodgy CGI also grates and there are many, decidedly underdeveloped, characters. A tighter script and a shorter running time (it's the first IJ film that feels too long) and Crystal Skull could have stolen the Summer. As it is it lost out to Batman and Hellboy. Shame.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't live up to its legacy, but still worth watching, 11 Aug 2009
Bringing old film franchises into the 21st Century can be a bit of a hit and miss affair. On the one hand, we've had relative success stories lately such as Rocky and Rambo, but on the other hand we've had real disappointments like Die Hard. I must admit, I was kind of curious to see where Indiana Jones would fall on this spectrum.
I've always been a fan of Indiana Jones movies. With their rollercoaster action scenes, globe-trotting exploits, brutal fist fights, explosions, evil enemies, abandoned tombs and fiendish booby traps, they had everything it took to fire the imagination of impressionable kids like me. In many ways, they actually harkened back to the old fashioned adventure serials of the 1930's and 40's, so it was interesting that the basic formula still worked with an entirely new generation of viewers.
The series came to a fitting close in 1989 with The Last Crusade. Like everyone else, I was convinced that Indy had run its coure and there would be no more films. Steven Spielberg didn't feel the same way however, and various scripts were hashed out over the next two decades. Eventually, with an ageing Ford threatening to pull out if shooting didn't start soon, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was put into motion. The result was one of the most anticipated movies of the last decade.
The film kicks off in Nevada in 1957, with Indy and his partner Mac held hostage by Soviet agents and forced to infiltrate a government warehouse to recover the crystal skull - a mysterious artifact of alien origin that the Russians believe has the power to control human minds. After a spectacular chase and shoot out, Indy manages to escape, and from then on, the film is a race between the two groups to recover the crystal skull and return it to its place of origin in the Amazon Jungle. Along the way, Indy hooks up with a young biker called Mutt, who proves to be a useful ally as well as an occasional pain in the arse.
With the huge amount of speculation and anticipation surrounding it, it was inevitable that Crystal Skull wasn't going to live up to the hype. But even I was surprised by the vitriolic reactions of some fans. People were actually dismissing this movie as not being part of the official canon.
The thing is, Crystal Skull isn't a bad film. It's just that its not as good as its predecessors. And how could it be? The other films were nothing short of cinematic brilliance.
A lot of people have commented on the ridiculousness of the plot, and while I have to agree that its probably the weakest of the series, its main problem is the characters. Mac's constant double-crossing becomes real old, real fast. By the end, I had no idea who the guy was working for, and frankly, I didn't care. I just wanted him dead. Marian Ravenwood (Indy's squeeze from the first movie) makes a welcome return, but her appearance feels perfunctory and underused. She never really does anything crucial to the plot, and I'm left with the distinct impression that her role is nothing more than fan service.
And Mutt doesn't do much to help matters. Last Crusade was about Indy's relationship with his father, and it worked mainly because Connery and Ford had such great chemistry. With Crystal Skull focussing on Indy's relationship with his son, it was clearkly trying to come full circle, but it doesn't quite work here. Ford and LaBeouf just don't have that magic.
Cate Blanchett is sleek and sexy as Soviet agent Irina Spalko, but she never really seems to present much of a threat. She's just disposable eye candy, ready to be killed off once she's served her purpose. She's certainly nothing compared to Toht from Raiders or Mola Ram from Doom.
The one pleasant surprise is Harrison Ford. At 64, I really didn't see how he could still play an adventure hero like Indy, but all credit to the guy, he really got in shape for this one. With the bullwhip, leather coat and fedora, he's still every inch the character he was twenty years ago.
On the downside again, the whole aliens plot bothered me, as it was such a marked departure from the series' traditional religious undertones. Raiders, Doom and Last Crusade dealt with Judaism, Hinduism and Christianity respectively, while here we've got... space aliens. Not good.
Many people have pointed to the more ridiculous action scenes, like Indy taking shelter in a lead-lined fridge to escape an atomic blast, or Mutt swinging through the trees Tarzan-style, accompanied by flocks of CGI monkeys. Okay, I have to admit, these scenes are pretty stupid, but if you think about it, they're not much less believable than the mine cart scene from Temple of Doom, or the opening of the Ark in Raiders.
On the subject of CGI though, I just have to mention that this film goes way over the score. I'm no cinematography expert, but I recognise good visuals when I see them, and I didn't see them here. CGI can be effective at making scenes more impressive if properly used, but when directors go over the score, it just becomes distracting and irritating. George Lucas has had far too big a hand in this one.
In the end though, I found Crystal Skull a fairly entertaining viewing experience. It won't rock your world or change your life, but its a decent, fun, brainless adventure movie. And let's face it, there's worse ways to kill a couple of hours.
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51 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of thye Crystal Skull, 3 Sep 2008
Resurrections, comebacks, revivals, call them what you want, they can all be dangerous events. There are the good - the return of Doctor Who to Saturday nights brought families back together (all be it behind the couch); Take That getting back together fulfilled the dreams of millions of fans; and for the more religious, the resurrection of Jesus must have been pretty cool. But for every hit, there is a fair share of misses - the new Star Wars trilogy had fans salivating, but turned out to be a damp squib; the Spice Girls still couldn't sing; and the new Gladiators is pants. So what fate has befallen much loved action-hero-cum-archaeologist Dr Henry `Indiana' Jones?
We rejoin the action 19 years after Indy's last adventure. Since then, World War Two has changed the world order, with the Soviets replacing the Nazis as the worlds' bullies. Back teaching at Marshall College - after the adrenaline rush of the opening scene of course - Indy is approached by teenage rebel Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), whose mother has been kidnapped. He tells Indy about a map and a crystal skull which may lead to the ancient lost city of El Dorado.
Whenever talk used to surface about the possibility of Indy IV, Ford, Spielberg, Lucas, and all others concerned maintained that the chances of it happening depended on the story. Having decided on the setting and outline of the film way back in early 1990s, it was just a matter of finding a suitable script. So why they passed on a script by Frank Darabont in favour of George Lucas' mess is beyond explanation. The `McGuffin' at the centre of the previous three films had always required a stretch of the imagination, but they were partly based on historical fact and myth, whereas the crystal skulls at the centre of this film are purely based on the fantasies of Lucas' mind.
The previous films, despite being made during the 1980s, always managed to maintain the feel of the 1930s in which they were set. But the latest instalment has a more polished feel to it, and despite markers pointing towards the 1950s - the nuclear explosion which kicks off the film and the vintage 1950s diner - it feels like a film set in 2008 rather than 1956. The increased use of CGI also detracts slightly from the magic of the first three, and again is slightly more polished than the B-movie feel which Spielberg was aiming for.
At 65, Harrison Ford is battling with Sly Stallone for the title of oldest action star, and does well to keep up with the pace of the film. The comic timing is slightly off this time round, but this is a more seasoned Indiana, and this is reflected in Ford's performance, as an Indy who is still loves what he does, but acknowledges that yes, he is getting on a bit.
The strong supporting cast are probably slightly too strong for their own good. By the climax of the film, there is Indy, Mutt, old flame Marion (Karen Allen), friends Mac and Harold Oxley (Ray Winstone and John Hurt respectively) and villain Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) all fighting for screen time and lines. One or even two of these characters could have been easily dropped to give the others more breathing space.
Cate Blanchett is especially underused, with her character having much more potential than was explored. She is instead pushed aside in favour of Shia LaBeouf's Mutt, with the studio obviously having one eye on a possible spin-off - God help us all. However, he does bring a certain zest and youthful streak to the film, which could easily have been labelled `Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Heaven' due to the advancing years of most of the main cast.
Although it doesn't hold the same magic and warmth of the previous three films, and the story leaves a lot to be desired, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull brings with it thrills and spills, and the return of a much loved movie character.
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